Cardano Founder to Develop New Cryptocurrency in Collaboration With Ethiopian Government

Charles Hoskinson, the founder of Cardano (ADA) and the CEO of IOHK, has recently announced the launch of an enterprise blockchain framework that aims to help millions of people in Africa, and will launch a cryptocurrency in collaboration with the Ethiopian government.

The enterprise blockchain framework is known as “Atala,” and is set to be a solution for companies and governments looking to implement new products, similar to Hyperledger Fabric, an open-source blockchain framework used by IBM Blockchain.

Atala, however, takes a different approach as instead of focusing on businesses, it’ll focus on governments in developing countries. Speaking to Forbes, Hoskinson stated:

However, the point is to be a solutions provider for governments in need of a municipal currency or a supply chain management system.

The framework has reportedly been built from the ground up, and is prepared for real-world use cases such as voting system, supply chain management, and property registration. Moreover, Atala focuses on cryptocurrency adoption.

The blockchain framework will reportedly first be used in collaboration with the Ethiopian government, to develop a new cryptocurrency that’ll “provide a secure and dependable means of payment for the nation’s capital.”

Per Hoskinson, the utility currency is set to allow millions of users to enter the cryptocurrency space. He was quoted as saying:

We are working with the Ethiopian government to create a new digital payments system that will allow six million users to pay their power and electric bills with cryptocurrency. We want to eventually combine this with an identity card.

While one of Atala’s first use cases will be with the Ethiopian government, the framework is reportedly going to be introduced in other African countries and service enterprise industries looking to adopt blockchain technology.

The launch of Atala was notably controversial within the Cardano community, as some users saw it as a distraction for Charles Hoskinson’s work in the cryptocurrency itself, which had its successful 1.5 upgrade in March of this year.

Others in ADA’s community, however, saw the move as positive as it may bring millions of users to Cardano and its decentralized applications, even though a new crypto will be launched with the Ethiopian government. The founder of Cardano has last month seen its coverage on Yahoo Finance get dropped over the initial public offering of internet unicorn Lyft.

PayPal is Cautiously Optimistic About Partnership with Libra Association

Payment platform was one of the first companies to join and support the Libra Association.

Payment platform PayPal is cautiously optimistic about its relationship with Facebook’s digital currency libra, despite being the highest-profile company to join the Libra Association.

PayPal Backs Libra Association

In June, shortly after the official unveiling of Facebook’s libra, PayPal announced an intention to join and support the Libra Association, a collection of tech and finance companies promoting the product.

At the time, PayPal billed the digital currency as a revolutionary product for people around the world,

We believe in democratizing participation in the digital economy for people from all walks of life, and businesses of all sizes.

However, PayPal appears cautious about its future with Facebook’s digital currency. PayPal investor relations vice president Gabrielle Rabinovitch reiterated Sept. 12 that the company is a non-binding agreement with libra,

It's a non-binding commitment. And obviously, I think there's a lot of work to happen before we get to that point where it becomes something more than just a very exciting idea.

She added,

The goals and ambitions of Libra are very consistent with PayPal's overall ambitions in terms of serving the underserved; democratizing access to capital. So we very much believe in the potential of Libra.

While PayPal appears optimistic about the future of libra, the digital currency has endured months of regulatory and political scrutiny concerning its release.

Earlier in the week, senior U.S. Treasury official Sigal Mandelker told an audience in Geneva that libra would be held to the highest standard of regulatory compliance in order to combat money laundering and terrorist funding.